


Maybe Something like Friends

by iwaizumemes (skytramp)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Dogs, Fluff, M/M, Middle School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4766696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skytramp/pseuds/iwaizumemes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yamaguchi had spent six months after he turned twelve begging for a dog and his mother had warned him, <i>if you want a dog you'll have to take care of him, you'll have to be a parent, Tadashi</i>. He'd taken his mother's words to heart; he didn't think any other thirteen year old was as diligent about walks three times a week or the nutritionally balanced diet of a white fluffy Pomeranian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe Something like Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [renaissance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/gifts).



> happy birthday [Isy!!!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/memorde)
> 
> Hope u enjoy this!

Yamaguchi walked along the sidewalk, a tiny dog dragging him along by a leash. It had become something of a routine, after school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he would drop off his bag and grab the dog leash to take Hikaru to the park. 

He had spent six months after he turned twelve begging for a dog and his mother had warned him, _if you want a dog you'll have to take care of him, you'll have to be a parent, Tadashi_. He'd taken his mother's words to heart; he didn't think any other thirteen year old was as diligent about walks three times a week or the nutritionally balanced diet of a white fluffy Pomeranian. 

The park was mostly empty. It was Monday and he guessed that people were tired from the start of their weeks. He liked Mondays the most, he could always let Hikaru off the leash without worrying about someone grabbing him, and they could play some fetch before the dog or Yamaguchi himself got tired. 

"Are you ready to play?" He asked, leaning down to unclip the leash from the dog's collar. He knew better than to expect an answer but he also would have told anyone who asked that Hikaru always looked noticeably happier after Yamaguchi asked the question. When he stood up Hikaru was jumping and spinning in little circles. He wasn't going any farther than the leash would have allowed him to, though, had it been connected. 

Yamaguchi fished the smaller than regulation tennis ball from his sweatshirt pocket and hid as much of it in his hand as he could. He hadn't fooled Hikaru, though, and the dog was on him instantly, jumping higher than before, eager for a chance to reach for the ball. 

"Oh, you're excited, aren't you?" He asked, and laughed when Hikaru spun in another little circle and jumped again. "Okay, okay, I'll toss it for you." He threw the ball. It was a soft toss, not meant to go more than 5 meters or so, just far enough for Hikaru to run for it without getting out of sight. He grabbed it quick, running on his little legs and bringing the ball back to Yamaguchi's feet. 

"Good boy!" Yamaguchi knelt down to pick up the ball and scratched behind Hikaru's ears in appreciation. 

"You know, your supposed to leash your dog here." The voice came from somewhere above Yamaguchi's head, and it frightened him so much that he fell hard on one knee in the grass. He squinted up at the boy who'd spoken, and could _just_ see him with the sun at his back. 

"Oh! Sorry, I mean, normally no one is here." Yamaguchi noticed that the boy was holding a leash, and, sitting still as a statue beside him, was a small Shiba, its nose lifted in the air. 

"You're lucky Sora is so well behaved, otherwise you could have had a dog fight to deal with." His voice was dismissive, and despite the levity of his words he sounded almost uninterested.

Yamaguchi pulled the leash from his pocket and clipped it to Hikaru's harness before standing up. He hadn't noticed before how tall the boy was, (more than 10 cm taller than him) or that they looked to be about the same age. 

"Sorry." Yamaguchi mumbled again, while Hikaru spun in little circles, twisting the leash in his owner's hand. He didn't seem to notice Sora, and Yamaguchi half-wondered if the other dog was real at all, as he hadn't moved since he'd first seen him. 

"You don't have to apologize so much. Nothing happened, anyway." 

Yamaguchi nodded and waited for him to walk away. It seemed as if their business together, whatever it had been, was completed, but a few seconds passed and the other boy made no moves. Hikaru jumped consistently at Yamaguchi's leg, trying to reach the ball he still held in one hand.

"I haven't seen you here before." Yamaguchi said, trying for conversation instead. The boy looked shocked that he'd spoken, almost as if he'd forgotten that Yamaguchi was there at all, before he nodded.

"I've never been here. There's a park closer to my house." 

Yamaguchi nodded too. It made sense that people would go to their closest parks, he did, after all. "Oh." He shoved the ball in his pocket and Hikaru whined before sitting down. Yamaguchi noticed the Shiba Sora cock its head to the side in confusion. "I'm Yamaguchi Tadashi, what's your name?"

The boy looked almost as confused as his dog for a second before pushing his glasses up further on his nose. "Tsukishima." He said and then nodded down at his dog. "That's Sora." 

Yamaguchi bowed a little, first towards Tsukishima and then, mostly as a joke, towards the dog. "It's nice to meet you both. Oh, and this is Hikaru." 

To his surprise, Tsukishima laughed. It was a nice laugh, louder than his voice had been, and Yamaguchi found himself looking up at him and shielding his eyes from the brightness of the sun. They looked at each other for a few seconds in silence before Sora moved, tugging gently at the leash in Tsukishima's hand and drawing their attention. 

"Oh, I have to go or I'll be late for dinner." Tsukishima said. He checked his watch and looked back down at the dog, who seemed to have a perfect internal clock, where he was pulling at the leash. 

"O-Okay, I guess I'll see you around." 

"Probably not, since this isn't my park." 

Yamaguchi was disappointed but tried not to show it. "Oh, well, yeah, I guess. But I'll be here Wednesday if you do come, maybe Hikaru and Sora can play together?" 

"Maybe." Tsukishima said, sounding uninterested, and he walked away, tightening his jacket around him. 

 

Wednesday came quickly, and with it came Yamaguchi's anticipation of seeing Tsukishima again. He wasn't sure what it was about the boy, what it was that made him so interesting, or why he desperately hoped he would show up at the park. Yamaguchi nearly threw his schoolbag across the room when he got home and grabbed the leash from its hook before attaching it to an eager Hikaru. 

"You ready?" He asked and Hikaru licked his hand. 

Yamaguchi tried not to walk too fast on the way to the park, but he also didn't stop Hikaru from tugging him along at whatever pace his tiny furry legs wanted to take him, and by the time the wide grass field opened up before them they were both a little out of breath. 

Tsukishima was sitting on the bench closest to the path where Yamaguchi entered, with Sora seated beside him like a tiny, well mannered child. 

"Tsukishima!" Yamaguchi called, waving an arm over his head and letting Hikaru pull him towards the other boy. 

"Hello, I didn't think you were coming." He didn't move when Yamaguchi approached, but Sora jumped off the seat and settled himself between Tsukishima's legs, giving Yamaguchi a place to sit. He sat down and Hikaru sat on his foot.

"I wasn't late! I almost ran here!" Tsukishima laughed again, but the smile on his face was gone before Yamaguchi could turn to see it. "Wait, were you making fun of me?" 

This time Yamaguchi looked at him, and when Tsukishima laughed again it lit up his whole face. "No, i wasn't." He said and Yamaguchi smiled back. 

"Sora is a weird dog, did you train him like that?" He said, gesturing to where Hikaru was sniffing at Sora's ear and Sora was sitting perfectly still, staring forward. 

"What do you mean? He's normal." 

Yamaguchi took a few seconds to figure out if Tsukishima was joking again, and concluded he wasn't. "That's not normal dog behavior." 

"How much do you know about dog behavior?" 

Little did Tsukishima know, but Yamaguchi was a relative _expert_ on dog behavior. He'd spent six months without a dog and then the nine months since getting Hikaru reading up on every piece of information he could find. He was determined not to fail in anything, Hikaru would be perfectly trained and perfectly treated, even if it meant relatively late nights of additional reading on top of his school work. 

He spent the next twenty minutes telling Tsukishima a rough overview of everything he knew about dog behavior, and, to his credit, Tsukishima even looked interested in most of it. The conversation went from dog behavior to school to sports and even to a short conversation about their families where Yamaguchi learned Tsukishima had an older brother and Yamaguchi told him about his own older sister who was already in her third year at university. He learned Tsukishima's given name was Kei and no one but his family ever called him it, and he learned that Sora was trained when they got him, and Tsukishima never thought he was weird at all. 

Before he knew it Sora was pulling at his leash again, signaling dinner time for Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi hadn't given Hikaru any exercise whatsoever. 

"I have to go." Tsukishima said, but didn't walk away after a few seconds. 

"I'll be here Friday... And Monday again." Yamaguchi offered, and Tsukishima nodded. 

"Goodbye then." He said. 

Yamaguchi let Hikaru off his leash once Tsukishima was a few feet away. He squatted down and scratched under Hikaru's chin. 

"Sorry for taking so long, I think I may be making a friend." Hikaru yipped and nuzzled at Yamaguchi's hand when he pulled the ball out of his pocket. 

 

It was Friday and it was raining. Rain generally meant a quick walk around the block and a good twenty minutes of brushing the quickly tangling mats in Hikaru's fur, but Yamaguchi couldn't miss a chance of seeing Tsukishima. Weird as it was, he was excited to learn more, to say something that would get another one of those rare laughs, to look him in the eye when he smiled and have the smile not fade. 

When he got home from school, already slightly wet from the walk from the train, he hung his bag up and knelt down to pet Hikaru. 

"Sorry boy, I'll walk you after dinner today." Hikaru didn't seem to respond, other than to lick Yamaguchi's knee through his uniform pants before the boy stood back up and grabbed his umbrella. 

The walk to the park wasn't long but it felt different without HIkaru there with him. His pants were splattered with water, though he avoided most of the mud, and by the time he was within sight of the park the sky was dark enough that Yamaguchi had to check his watch to be assured of the time. 

Tsukishima wouldn't be there, he told himself, he _shouldn't_. People don't go out of their way to go to a park farther from their house when it's raining, there'd be no reason. A good part of Yamaguchi questioned why he was there at all, why he would come all the way without Hikaru, why he cared enough to show up on the off chance Tsukishima would be there, just so the boy wouldn't think he'd been abandoned. 

The park was empty. Their normal bench, empty as well, sat half under a tree but most of it was soaking wet, certainly too wet to sit on. Yamaguchi sat down anyway, heedless of the wet spots on the back of his pants, or how the umbrella dripped water down the back of his shirt when he moved it forward. 

He tried not to be disappointed. It had always been a long shot, and they were hardly even friends, they hadn't exchanged mail addresses, they hadn't even known each other a week ago, he wouldn't let himself be sad about it. 

"It's raining." 

Yamaguchi looked up and his mouth dropped open. Tsukishima was standing off to the side, a yellow patterned umbrella over his head and there was no sign of Sora. 

"You're here." He couldn't keep the smile off his face.

"Why are you sitting on a wet bench?" Tsukishima glanced between Yamaguchi's face and the bench underneath him. 

"I didn't think you were coming." 

"Your pants are probably soaking wet." He replied, and took a few steps before settling onto the bench beside Yamaguchi. 

"So are yours now." Yamaguchi smiled and adjusted his umbrella so theirs didn't bump. On closer inspection the pattern on Tsukishima's umbrella was dozens of small green figures. 

"I know." 

They sat in silence and Yamaguchi watched the rain fall on the grass in front of them. The clouds were even darker and the streetlights were flicking on one by one in response. 

"I read about dog behavior." Tsukishima said. "It's more complicated than I thought." 

"What did you learn?" Yamaguchi asked. 

Tsukishima told him. 

They sat together on the bench until the rain stopped and they both closed their umbrellas. There was no Sora to tell Tsukishima when dinner was, and it took Yamaguchi glancing at his own watch, an hour and a half late, to stop their conversation. 

"See you on Monday?" Yamaguchi asked, standing and shaking the water from his closed umbrella.

"Okay." Tsukishima smiled. 

Yamaguchi watched, staring at the boy's face, but the smile didn't fade until sometime after they both turned around. When he found himself smiling back he knew then that this must have been something like a friendship.


End file.
